He Sold a Million-Dollar Brand to Bet on a Nasal Strip | Sam Posthuma
In this candid interview, Sam Posthuma, the founder who sold a seven‑figure e‑commerce brand and now runs High Strips, shares the core principles that have driven his success and his vision for the future. He emphasizes that paid advertising is the lifeblood of a direct‑to‑consumer business, describing the obsessive focus required to keep ad accounts running. When evaluating hires, Sam relies on an intuitive sense of "energy" and a track record of over‑delivering. He explains his personal mantra of "stay limitless," framing freedom from financial, geographic, and mental constraints as the driver behind his entrepreneurial choices. Sam outlines potential next ventures—a niche supplement line with authentic storytelling (e.g., longevity teas from China or Nepalese shilajit) and adventure‑focused products like custom parachutes or surfboards. He reflects on his biggest mistake—under‑stocking his flagship nasal strip—and asserts that product quality ultimately trumps marketing spend. Finally, he offers advice to his 18‑year‑old self: focus on compounding value through health, relationships, and building brands over time, even if early efforts aren’t immediately profitable. The conversation closes with mutual appreciation and hints at future collaborations.
Chapters
It's too good to leave. I would never want to leave. We showed our strips to this factory, like the actual factory where the middleman/trader was buying from. Like, we want to produce this at your place to save costs. And they're like, nah, you're already like number 14 that comes here with strips packaged as an example. We produce for Hi-Strips and we won't copy.
You're like, we are Hi-Strips.
And we were like, we are Hi-Strips, you know, like this is our brand. It basically started from a brand mainly made to have a lifestyle and have girls around. To the brand it's now. I have 3 co-founders.
I've always been a solo founder and I actually regret it.
Without these 3 motherfuckers, I, I like, it wouldn't be as big as it was now. We have like 4,000 active people making content for us and the numbers are nice, but like the story is what counts.
Are you running the ad account yourself now?
Yeah, I'm in that account every day for 2 hours at least.
How much you spending now? What's been the hardest thing? Because you make it sound so easy.
I was building a brand, six months close it, six months close it, six months close it. Fashion is fucked up. I truly don't believe in e-commerce. It was five years ago. Keep building something over the years, even if it's not profitable, even if it's not paying off anything. Keep building it. Keep building value. One day it will pop off.
Right, let's dive in. So Sam, how do I say your second name? Postuma.
Postuma. It's one of those names that bro, you killed it on the first try, man. Sam Postuma.
Fine, it's easy. We've known each other a few years. I feel like I don't know the full extent of your story, which we can get into. Obviously, you've built and sold multiple things, as your samplesumer.com says online. And I've heard a bit of those stories. But I want to dive straight in. What's the view on e-com you have now on building things that maybe you didn't have— I think you said 8 years on your website. You've been in the game 8 years. And you're only like 25.
I think I'm 25 now. I started at 16. So it's already longer. It's 9 years now.
Like 9 years.
Yeah.
What's your general take on e-com and how to grow shit on a high level? Then we can get into some of the details, the backstory.
Yeah, like it's funny that you ask because I just had like a convo with a friend about this yesterday. And we were more speaking about how on paper it looks like e-com is becoming more accessible, right? Like every year it feels like it's become more and more accessible with AI, with like, I don't know, suppliers in China speaking better English, with like suppliers in China also understanding it. Like everything seems more easy. If my sister now wants to start an e-com brand, She probably can do it off the bat, where 10 years ago it required quite some research and I don't know, like intelligence about it.
So your girlfriend started one as well, right?
Yeah, yeah, but I'm cooking for her, you know, like I'm helping. So like that's the big difference. But no, I think right now e-commerce is just all about the story. It's all about the story behind it, you know. You see like recently we have seen Groen's getting, I think, a billion dollar, $1.2. We have seen Create You know, like it's all like brands that have like some feelings or emotions behind it where at first it was more product-wise. But I think right now like e-commerce is not even a thing anymore. It's more like, I guess, a channel of like a bigger brand building and e-com being a bigger story. Yeah. Yeah. Like I truly don't believe in like e-commerce as it was 5 years ago. As in launching a store, pushing it, seeing how hard it goes. It's really like a whole ecosystem now. That's why with High Strips, we like building so much story actually. Like all we do every month is like, how can we now collaborate with an artist, an athlete, or a celebrity, or a person that makes sense with our brand? How can we launch a new product that continues the story? We are not even like that much busy with KPIs and like scaling. Like of course we are, but like not hardcore scaling things up. Like the main, I would say, red thread in the business now is building out the story. As I feel like that is something what is mattering the most right now. As all the other stuff, it can be replicated, you know? Like everyone could now build an industry brand, like very bluntly say. It's not that hard anymore. Same, I think, for like a coffee blend. You know, everyone could reach out to a manufacturer, slap a logo on it.
And they definitely do. And they definitely send our products and say, copy this, as I'm sure they do for you.
You wanna know something crazy, bro?
Although yours actually stays on my nose, whereas a lot of the Amazon ones don't.
These are like the strongest glue ever. I will send you a pack.
You can send me one. You sent me one before. I, I really should, but they are genuinely good. Yeah, because all the other ones I buy— yeah, I'm not just saying this— fall off my nose. Yeah. And then it defeats the entire point.
The one I sent you, no?
No, it stayed on really well.
Great.
And I probably have like—
yeah, sweaty as fuck. Right. I sometimes wear it for legit 24 hours. I sleep with it, I wake up, it's still there. I go for a gym, whatever. But a funny story with the strips is that we actually, um, you know, like shout out to my homie Daniel, Daniel Dala as well. But we, before we like started to like digging really deep into China. We bought these strips, um, like from a trader. Do you know the difference between like a trader and a factory?
Maybe, but tell the audience.
Super important to know. Like, a trader is basically a company anywhere in the world, by the way— US, UK, China— that trades goods.
Yeah, so they're a middleman.
A middleman, exactly. And there's also middleman with supplements, because I know guys that Daniel has helped as well that would buy their supplements from a middleman.
That's how we started. And then I kind of realized, yeah, I was like, hold on, it's the most important thing, man.
Because we've been buying the strips from a trader for a long time until like half a year ago with Daniel. We went to China and we went to our trader, and Daniel, like, he's smart, you know, he speaks Chinese. So he was like getting kind of a hold of this. Like he said, Sam, like, I don't think the strips are being produced here. So he was keep asking like, where's the factory?
And like, were they claiming that it was?
They were claiming, yeah, of course they were claiming. So you're like, show us the factory. And they're like, yeah, the factory is at a different facility an hour drive. Like, we don't have time for that, blah, blah, blah. Then Daniel, I don't know how, managed to find the actual factory that produced high strips. So that sold it to this trader. First of all, like, we won big margins on that, like 20-30% cheaper cocks. That's amazing. But we went there with our nasal strips and we showed it, like, coming back to where we started this convo, like, on how everyone could start like a brand like ours. We showed our strips to this factory, like the actual factory where the middleman/trader was buying from. Like, we want to produce this at your place to save costs. And they're like, nah, you're already like number 14 that comes here with strips packaged as an example. We produce for High Strips and we won't copy.
You're like, we are.
And we were like, we are High Strips, you know, like this is our brand. No, no, we don't believe that because this trader buys from us and they have exclusivity contract. We're like, no, this is our brand. They're like, yeah, we're getting a request almost once a week with your website on can we copy this? And like, we are like, no, this is really us. So after like a few back and forth, they believed us. We ditched the trader and we worked with the factory. But just to showcase that like everyone can now come like with a brand, goes to like a factory, say that we exactly want this with a different logo. There's 100 copies.
Yeah.
So right now e-commerce is not really more into that because remember back in the days It was more a product thing. And like, I don't know about you, but if I would speak to guys, they're like never telling what product they run because if we would steal their product, they would be cooked, you know? Like, I would like be in Bali at like a dinner, like, what are you running? Yeah, I can't tell, bro. I can't tell. I don't want to— I don't want to spoil the product. I have such a winner now. Like, guys that have like a winner every 3 months, you know? And then they had—
they're like, so I used to be that guy.
They had a down period and like, yeah, I'm waiting to find a new winner. I got a new winner. And that was e-commerce, finding winners, right? But now it's not like nail strips, try and sell them online. It's really not a winner. Like we had to go like in losses before we like get like the LTV, the MRR growing, you know? So I think like very, very long answer to your question, but it's more about the story now than about the product because the product everyone can do and it's not a secret anymore. But like the people behind it, the story behind it and the feeling it translates, it's not something that—
Yeah, I wanna go deeper into that later. But firstly on the story, like how would you define like your story high level when you started, right? You started, I think you said 16.
Yeah.
I, I was pretty late to the game. I didn't start properly till I was like 20, 21.
Really?
But I had like a previous life of wanting to be an Olympic athlete and all this shit.
Yeah, everyone wanted that, I think. Like, bro, I also wanted to be like all sorts of things, you know?
But yeah, um, like, give me the—
yeah, you know, yeah, like, to put it like a bit more, more compact, because I've done like, I think, 12 brands, tried it out, uh, did a lot. I started at 16 by selling, um, electric lighters at our general hall in school where people would have lunch.
In Holland, right?
Yeah, in Holland. In Holland, we have school, or the class I follow was till 18 years old, high school. And people started smoking and doing weed in the break. In the Netherlands, it's legal, by the way. But anyway, so I found these electric— me and my classmate, my friend found electric lighters online, I think on AliExpress or something. And we started buying them, like, I think we started with only 10 for like €5. And we started to sell them for €7 in like the general school area. I think the website or something about it is still online, but maybe I can send it to you after the pod so you can like go over it like with some screen record. But the branding was fucking epic actually. It was kind of the same like this. We had this gradient, we called it Thunderlighter because it was electric, like plasma.
Well, it was pink and purple.
Yeah. Yeah, it was rechargeable and it was kind of going good on school. And then I was like, okay, I'm 16, you know, I don't know anything about business, but like, let's scale these operations up. So we started to like make listings in Facebook Marketplace, um, just like photos of the lighters. We did shoots of like, um, people like lighting with a lighter doesn't work, but then with our electric lighter it worked seamlessly, whatever. We just started like filming. I can even send you some of those ads, I still have them. It's pretty, pretty funny to show, man. They're also like windproof. So I was making ads in my mom's like bathroom where I would try and light up a cigarette with a hair dryer, like that, that like blow that wind with a normal lighter didn't work with the Thunder lighter worked. And then we made like listings on Facebook Marketplace started going well. Did that for almost a year, like had people come to my house, I would give them ten or I would give them one or I would give them two lighters. They would buy it and just started to think like, hey, I should sell this online. That's how I started with Shopify. I think it was 17, 18 back then.
Yeah.
Flew to New York with Casper, actually, my homie. And that's where it really opened my eyes because New York was like 10 years ahead of Amsterdam in terms of—
Was that for like an event or just in general?
No, so I, at the end of school, we had to do like internship of work, like internship. Like most people went to like the Dutch farm to help with like, I don't know, finances for the cows or whatever. And I just kind of kept to my parents that I was gonna work for a company in New York. Um, which I was now. I was just chilling there for like a few weeks with Casper, and that's where it really opened my eyes. Uh, Casper was working for Knox. I'm not sure if that rings a bell. Like, this vegan chicken nuggets, it was like a really big thing back then. And this guy Ben, uh, Ben Pasternak, who was making that brand, he was like very much into the branding. And I remember that last— but like seeing Casper do that, making cool websites, cool products, that's what kind of motivated me to like go harder on this. Came home to the Netherlands and just went all in on branding. Then I started a print-on-demand company called Songshirts. Yeah, where you could connect your Spotify. Most common, like, fuck, I really mistake Shopify, Spotify. But you could connect your Spotify and it would like pick your number one song that you listened, print on a t-shirt and ship it to you. The artwork, the album artwork.
That's so crazy because I had something almost identical.
Really?
I never actually sold any, bro.
I built this whole thing, did a photo shoot with like— I was inviting the hottest chicks I knew in Amsterdam, like just like I felt on top of the world, like kind of that start of the story, you know? Like everything went fast, doing a photo shoot, building the website, having like a tech guy make that API with Spotify and the print on demand, until it was going super hard one month growing until I got like a crazy copyright claim by Sony and Universal because We were selling artwork, you know. We were like using artists' their album covers on t-shirts to sell. Never thought about that before.
Like that, surely.
Yeah, never thought about that before. And that's like, you know, I have a lot of scale.
Were you running ads? It was just like we were running ads.
Yeah, it was at scale. It was really big at scale.
You left school at this point?
Yeah, but I finished.
I finished my education. Are you still thinking I'm gonna go get a job?
I finished my high school, and this was like in my sabbatical, like in like a gap year. Yeah, and we'd say in the Netherlands. And then I was like, I told my parents like. One year gap year, just gonna do like some side quests and then I will go to uni.
Um, and then never did.
Never did, yeah. But, um, I'm thinking what was, what was after that? But I, I just tried a lot of brands, um, after the song shirts thing, like a lot of mistakes, failures because of like— yeah, same things like this copyright, you know, like you will— you never like get prepared for that if you— did you do uni or not? Anything like that?
Yeah, I did it twice but dropped out twice.
Yeah.
Okay, so I always, I always knew that I would never finish, but I just wanted to go to meet people.
Yeah, and that's a good one.
Then I had like a similar story in a way, but like, yeah, I had a business that started doing well while I was at uni. Yeah, so me and my mate who now runs Saw With Us, big agency, like started this clothing brand. I was just Skiving, and then eventually I was like, fuck this. Yeah, showed my parents a Shopify dashboard and they were like, okay, fine, you can leave.
Ah, nice. I always like feel kind of regret that I didn't try uni for a year or something because I heard the most fun stories of people are always from that area, you know.
From— yeah, definitely. fond memories. But yeah, I went for like a year, then dropped out, and that was that.
Yeah. Nah, but in uni they don't prepare you for stuff like that, I felt like.
No, for sure.
Like mistakes that do it.
I definitely feel like it's become a bit of a joke, but I think it's like, must be statistically true. There's definitely more higher percentage of people in e-com from Dutch.
Yeah.
Like all the Dutchies are fucking scalers, I swear.
Yeah.
Unless it's just because they're the people I've met, but—
We're traders in blood, bro, already. Like, you know, like—
It's like a pretty small population, but I swear the percentage of like big time Amicon guys from Holland is crazy.
Yeah.
So that period, to speed up a few years.
Yeah.
I know about Old Money, I know about High Strips. We can get onto both of them in a sec. But yeah, like, what happened in the first few years after you started doing this full-time and then you launched Old Money, which we can come on to? Like, what does that chapter look like between— just try multiple things?
Yeah, just trial and error. And I had some things that were doing pretty great. Me and Matt had a brand together called Sheet. It was like a rip-off of the hoodie, like those hoodie blankets in the Netherlands.
We had like a Dutch version And you're still living in the Netherlands as well?
Yeah, yeah. We ripped that very hard and that went good. And like just a lot of trial and errors. Like nothing really worked longer than I think half a year.
But it worked enough to not have to get a job, right?
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I would always find a way, you know, like it worked enough. Or I would do some agency work on the side back then.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would always find a way. And then like Old Money came.
When did you launch that? 2023?
Yeah, it's a good question. I think 2023, yeah. It was like 2 years zero to exit. So like—
So let's go deeper on that. So like, where were you? Like, how much success would you say you'd had? Like, you know, high level, you'd made a bit of money, or like prior to that brand you had a bit of experience, you tried a bunch of things, but nothing had really scaled?
I made money, I made money, but like nothing was like really truly successful. But also because of my spending patterns, you know, like I would make like $100 grand and spend $100 grand, you know, um, because I was like— I still am like full-time traveling. I was like Yeah, like a new country every week and flying, hotels.
Was that the case back then?
Yeah.
Pre-old money?
Pre-old money.
So there's like a dropshipping, trying loads of different things period?
Yeah.
I had the same period between like 2018 and '21.
It made money, but like it wasn't substantial, you know? Like you could make $100K in one month and minus $50K a month too. And then, you know, like it was really like volatile. And like the lifestyle, like constant traveling, it sounds cheap, like being a nomad, but like Flights, taxis, things.
It's also not that productive after a while.
It's not productive.
Yeah, I think everyone should.
Well, it ignites some creativity, you know? Like if I land somewhere in a new country, I'm like, you like switch the mode, you know? You're on, you're like ready, ready to go.
Where was the favorite place? You do a lot of Bali or?
I do a lot of Bali, but my my place for like creativity and work will always be New York. I love it there, man. If I land in New York City, like also coming from here, like it's such a like a crazy energy, you know? Like you want you want to do something. You want to build sit in the lobby there and work. Um, but, but yeah, favorite place overall is always going to be Cape Town or Bali just because of the life. Yeah, nature, chill for sure. You've never been to Cape Town, right? Once. Once.
Oh yeah, we met there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, bro, be honest, it's an epic play, like a, like adult play.
I've not done it enough. I've done Bali like 12 times, like every year, more than every year for like 8 years. Yeah. Um, although the past 2 times I've got dengue and Bali belly really badly twice. I nearly died the second time. I was in hospital. Yeah, um, that kind of put me off a little bit. Yeah, Cape Town I've done once and it was only for that trip. Yeah, um, I would like to go more. Yeah, I've heard very good things about it. Come next year, time zone, great weather. Yeah, do you go for a while or—
I go for a month always.
Yeah, yeah, always in winter, right? Like December?
Yeah, yeah, January is like the best one there. It's like flip, flip seasons. It's summer, you know?
Yeah, I want to go for sure. So Old Money then? Yeah, that's like the first proper brand, proper scale. Obviously you exited as well, we can talk about that.
Yeah.
I was thinking it was two. You said two years, right? It was a pretty short journey. Was it a bit longer?
Yeah. No, it was. It was two years. Yeah. Yeah.
Why that brand? Like, was there much thinking about the vehicle, or did you kind of just get into something and it worked and you scared the shit out of it?
Yeah. So like, I was still in that phase of testing things, right? Like kind of general dropshipping-ish. Um, back then I was in Bali actually when I started it, and I remember like my store, like my last store, like just Didn't work anymore. I was like selling some like home accessories or something in that direction, I think. And 2022, 2023, like Iman, Iman Gazi was like a big trend and this other— yeah, I don't get the names anymore, but these guys and like the old money aesthetic with Skyfall, like, um, like those edits, you know, like those montages of like the old money aesthetic. And they all had in common that they're wearing loafers. I never had owned a pair of loafers in my life. Yeah, Loro Piana. So I like, let me build a brand around that. Let me use those edits, like obviously not with Iman's face or something, but like those montages of like being in Gstaad or St. Moritz or whatever. Yeah, with that, with that soundtrack and with the loafers. And then I have like a tagline like, get, get the, the $1,000 look for $50. That was kind of what I started with, with the loafers. I think that was like theoldmoneyloafersstore.com or like some something like that. Yeah. And that started popping off really good. Like, I saw like a really good like upward trend towards that, and like the comments were good, like, oh, finally, like, I've been trying to look like that for like a cheap price. The quality was good, so that was also nice. Like, the feedback was good of the first couple of orders. And then, um, I was like, fuck it, let me try and like— because when I started this journey with the lighters, I actually had a— I built a super nice brand. That lighter brand was super nice.
Aesthetically, you mean?
Aesthetically, everything, packaging, whatever. Then I had 3, 4 years of like dropshipping. Yeah. And then I was like, fuck it, let me get back to that. So I—
yeah, I had a very similar pattern as well. Yeah.
So I was like auctioning on the domain name oldmoney.com because those 2 words, there was nothing before or after. old-money.com.
Oh, okay. Was that expensive or no?
It was, it was pretty expensive.
Why not oldmoney.com? Uh, too expensive.
It was like a million dollars or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And plus also, like, I thought like everyone had that dash, you know? It was like Eiken Amsterdam. It was like—
It's still going, right?
Yeah, yeah, it's still going.
Yeah. So you started with loafers.
Yeah.
Dropshipping, or like, I guess like branded hybrid dropshipping.
Yeah.
I'm assuming.
Hybrid indeed. And then I was like, with the loafers, I was like, fuck it, let me make this a brand again, finally, you know? Like, I'm gonna make this like something I can be like proud of.
Yeah.
Um, like build something that has value as well, because that's the thing, like a brand and a story holds value, everything else doesn't. In the end, like numbers are nice, but like the story is what counts.
Yeah.
And that's when I bought the domain name and actually started like all the branding, the dark green, started buying linen bags to ship it in, like those like duvet bags, like dust bags.
Yeah.
Added more products as well so people could shop like whole old money outfits. Um, a few months over, they did my first shoot in like a very old money like Amsterdam kennel house. Did a summer collection in Cape Town. Like, you know, Cape Town has some old money spots, say like golf courses, uh, like 1700 estates, stuff like that. And then it started to build like into a very nice brand. Um, but one year in, I started to notice I chose the wrong niche because fashion is fucked up.
I used to have a clothing brand.
Yeah, I will never ever go into fashion again, bro. That's the thing. Like, eventually we had, um Like per lookbook, so per season, which is 4 a year, we wanted to launch like 20-ish, 15-ish products. With 15 products in like 5 colorways in like 7 sizes, that was like almost like 2,000 SKUs every season.
I guess that's more manageable. You still like branded dropshipping it, which I think is a great model, by the way. I think a lot of people overlook that.
Yeah, yeah.
Was that the model the whole way through? You were never buying stock?
Well, it was the model until I was like, I use this factory for a shirt. Yeah, this factory for a polo, this factory for a zip-up, and this factory for a t-shirt. If someone would buy all 4 in my size medium, for example, it would get all different size because every factory used their own like Chinese whatever size for medium. So eventually I had to buy everything, also put a label in there. Like, they wouldn't do that, and I would have to send like standard sizing to over 20 factories. Like, we use this sizing for medium. This one for small. If you mess it up, like there's like incongruent, like incongruent sizing in your brand. Because now even if my, if I would order samples for myself in size medium, let's say a shirt, a t-shirt and a polo, the polo would be like size extra small. The shirt would actually be too big. Like it didn't make sense. Like, and this was the biggest, biggest headache. Like I knew how to build the brand. It was doing nice, but the sizing and everything was like a never stopping problem, I think.
You have a co-founder on that one, or just you?
No, it was all me.
How did the scale look like, like high level? Like how quickly did it scale? You ran it for pretty much 2 years. We can get to the exit in a second.
Yeah, yeah. I think, um, I started it end of summer 2023.
Yeah.
And I did a nice Q4, a nice like Q5, uh, roll in January. Um, February was nice. And then the first May or June month before summer, We did like a big campaign, like get ready for Europe summer and Amalfi Coast. And we used again all these edits, you know, of people like being in Saint-Tropez and like Monaco. And that's when we did like very big days. That's when we like started to roll out. There was like pre-summer 2024. And then I knew like, okay, we are kind of a summer brand, you know, because people want to have the linen shirts.
Is it very noticeably like seasonal?
Yeah. Yeah.
Summer and winter or just summer?
Summer before summer and before winter season were good because winter season we had like cool campaigns. About going to Gustav, for example, like a cruise ship or something like, and buy those zip-ups.
Yeah.
So it was winter and summer, but then before summer I knew like, okay, this is a big one because it really started to like do great numbers. Then I ran it another year, 2025, pre-summer again. Like I knew pre-summer is going to be big so I could prepare even better, work on margins, go to China many times, which is very fun to do, by the way.
Yeah.
Um, and then like I popped out the Great Summer 2025 as well. And then, um, I think it was pre-winter, like October 2025 is when I sold it pretty fast, like in a few weeks. Um, so it was around 2 years of running, 2 big summers. Yeah, 2 proof of concept. Like, you know, people come back in summer and that's when I, um, I decided to quit because—
Fantastically, like, was that a Meta Ads brand fundamentally, which most brands are?
What brand?
Is that how you grew it, just on Meta?
Yeah.
Like only Meta?
Or just— Purely Meta.
—returns as organic?
Purely Meta.
Yeah.
High Street is different though, but old money is—
Yeah, we'll get onto that for sure.
—purely, purely Meta.
Why sell it? What was the thinking? I remember you mentioned that to me on WhatsApp a little bit.
Bro, I hate fashion, man.
Was it continuing to go even though you hated it? Or was it slowing down a bit? Margins going down?
It was continuing to grow. But if I wouldn't have sold it then, I would have probably crashed it. Because it was such— every season I had stress. Like, oh, I need to do the sizing. Need to fly to China again. Like China was super fun. I loved going to China. It's so cool. But it was always a disappointment. You come in the factory, you're like, okay, yeah, this is like completely fucked up. And you would like have to like change things last moment. Yeah, like I'm just not a fashion head. Like I see how other brands are doing it. Like what is his name again from underwear du voir or something? What's this guy's name?
Reese. Yeah, he's a killer.
What is it? Yeah, Reese. Oh yeah, Reese. Um, and Icon and stuff, much respect. I like— I as a solo founder, it's a tough game, but they have— I think they have big teams now for sure on like the, the product side. Like marketing, I had all said and done, but the product side, I was like doing with one staff. Like that was the head of the team, like at peak for that business, I think around 15 people. Yeah, 1-5. And I had one head of product who was doing like all the sizing, sampling And she was like also like burnt the fuck out, you know? Like she was like getting hundreds of samples every season, have to do the sizing, everything. Like to do this, you need to like, I think, have a team of like at least 4 people full-time on product and design and sizing. So this is something that you are dedicated to. And if you do it well, it's an amazing business because people come back if they like the quality.
Time is massive as well, right?
Yeah, same for me. Like I buy a t-shirt, I like it, I keep buying it, you know, like every other half year.
Yeah.
So if you crack it, if you're like dedicated enough to do it, then it's amazing. Also, you need to love it, you know, like I did. I don't like fashion. I don't like shooting. I like never watch like model shows or Fashion Week, whatever.
I'm the same.
But if you have interest in that, then it can be an amazing business. But if you don't— are not like passionate for fashion, it's a hard no for me. And that's why I sold it, because I was like, this is not going to be it anymore for one more year for me.
So. So it sounds like you obviously just found it as an opportunity, maybe got bigger and grew better than you expected, but then it was like, fuck, to actually do this properly to the next level. I just don't care enough. So I definitely agree. I think your heart has to be in a category, at least enough. You have to enjoy it. What does your day look like? Is it all just grinding on it? But fuck me if you don't enjoy the product. I'm not a fashion guy either. I wear the same shit every day. It's either a shirt like this or a black t-shirt.
Yeah, no, exactly the same. I alternate.
So that sales process, I think a lot of people are curious about that because you obviously hear about all these mega exits like Grunds. And then at the other end of the spectrum, you hear about people just running gray hat dropshipping stores and never exiting. And that's far more common.
Yeah.
I guess this is probably somewhere in between, right?
Yeah, because like, of course we didn't have like any major assets. We had a Shopify store and a customer list and a good domain name. And, and I must say, like, we had a— we have a great Instagram account, like half a million real active followers built from scratch. Every post we do get 100K views organically. So, um, that's been doing pretty like well in terms of assets, but we, we didn't have like true proof of concept. We didn't have— because 2 years is not really long in the fashion industry— we didn't have, um, an evergreen product, which is like, for anyone watching, that's the most important thing that people that buy a company are seeking. They're like, okay, we buy, but will we sell in 2 years the same volume for the same product? You know, like, Ice is kind of evergreen. But we did new collections every time. So what if we drop a collection that's not trendy? Or what if we drop a collection that is like being sold by Zara or something?
Yeah.
Then like, uh, we were kind of like reliant, uh, on that. So that's why we didn't get the biggest multiplier.
But how did that process look like? You decide you want to sell.
Yeah.
Obviously, like, it's— I've dealt with these like companies. Was it like Flippa? Was it like Quiet Light Brokerage? One of these?
No, I don't really like to use those platforms.
How did it come about? Like, what does the process look like from you decide you want to sell, the money hits the bank account? Because I think that's what people don't hear about.
Yeah, well, I have a very good contact, like a good broker, and he just had a big list of people that he knows are interested in buying like cheaper deals. Because we were like 2 years old, we don't have evergreen product, that makes you cheap.
Yeah.
And what is cheap is like a 2x, 3x multiplier. Yeah, that's cheap. 1.5, 1 even for some.
It's still a good outcome if you can sell it and you don't want to do it, right?
Yeah, exactly. Like even if I would get a 1x multiplier on my yearly profit, which is the most important number in your whole exit process, I would do it because I was done with it. And yeah, first thing first, like I had a good contact, good list. You can find good contacts on Google, on Instagram, on X, even on Flippa or Empire Flippers, I think is one. What is the most important? What everyone will ask is your TTM, so trailing 12 months profit. That needs to be a good number. That needs to be not declining, either flatlining or growing. And that's when you're ready for sale. That's like literally the first step. You have to find a broker. You have to have your numbers good and they have to be correct. Like you will get due diligence on every sale you do, even if it's below $1 million.
Yeah.
You will get due diligence. And the most important thing is to have your TTM profit good. And that's also why I advise people, because I've been speaking to a lot of brands that have been scaling up, to sell faster than you might think. Because I've spoken to some guys that's scaled up heavily. Like an example brand, I'm not going to mention the brand, but they were doing 2025 or '24, I think like $80 million in rev, 8-0, for like 12% margin, which is amazing. And it was like, Like a growing line.
Yeah.
And I told him like, you should sell right now because this is what people like and this is how you— the more you grow, the higher your multiplier. You go from a 2x to a 5x even. And he was like, nah, I'm gonna grow a lot higher.
Yeah, yeah. If you build like a proper brand, like a, you know, Grunge or Wild Cosmetics, a proper brand will get higher.
Yeah, no, for sure. And I was like— and he was like, nah, I'm gonna grow to $100 million next year and 20% in March, and then we'll get even more money. And it's end of 2025, it completely crashed. Yeah, went down to like $10,000 a day.
Was that like a— would you say that was a proper brand? Was that like an opportunistic store?
Proper brand.
Yeah, like proper team.
Yeah, yeah, everyone like knows the brand. Okay, it was a really proper brand and he like plumbled down.
And yeah, I've seen this many times as well.
It's worth zero now. No one will buy a sinking ship, you know, like no one will get on a ship that's already like half under. So that's why I think, um, Coming back to your question, like what does it look like? Having those numbers is the single-handedly important thing. All other things come later. Like I don't know, you have issue with stock. We a buyer can fix it. You know, he he buy a buyer buys a company to like give his like flavor to it, give his expertise, give his money as well, and like his ideas. So like if your profits look good and it's growing or it's stable, that's all you need to start with. Everything else comes later. Yeah, so I had that and it was doing pretty good and I knew it. Like, I have like sold the Tunnel Lighter brand in 2018, 2019, so I knew this was important. So I came to the guy, I'm like, look, I have this use case for you. When I came to him, the brand was 1.5 years old.
Who was he though? Because I'm always curious, like, yeah. And I've heard a similar story from someone else naming— not naming their brand— where they sold it for, I thought, was a very good number at a good time a few years ago. And they said, oh, this The person bought it. They said more colorful words than that, and they didn't do very well with it.
He, but what do you mean with he? Like the broker or the buyer?
As in the buyer who bought his business, his brand at the time, just didn't know what they were doing basically. They had a lot of capital from something else.
Yeah. Now I will go there. I will go there what happened with me. But like with he, like it was just my broker that I knew he had a company similar to FlipHub, but kind of more professional. To private investors only, so not like a marketplace.
Yeah.
Um, so I came to him with those— not to my broker— with those numbers, and I knew I was good. I'm like, hey, 1.5-year-old, I know it's young, TTM is looking healthy. I think we did like $800,000, um, or like $1.2 million, like, before tax in profits. Yeah, looks healthy. Here you are, like, um, smack a, like, a multiplier to what you think it's worth. Let's bring it to market. I am done with it. Yeah, and then he was like, okay, look, we can sell it for like 3x plus multiplier. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be like six months listing, or we can do like a distress sell and like lower the multiplier, and I will do a whole story. So that's what we did. We lowered the multiplier. He like sent it out to all his like client list, and he had like a list of 200 rich people in America, basically, or like more even. We're like, this buyer is done with it. It's a good deal before Christmas, before Q4. He wants to close in 4 to 6 weeks if you're interested. And that's what happened. Someone came and said, okay, I can have the money ready in 4 weeks.
But were they an e-commerce operator? Do they already have similar businesses? Because that's where I'm curious on these smaller deals.
That's the thing. Like, absolutely not. This person, like, first I had like a very big guy that was doing all the Walt Disney merchandising in the US, but he bailed out because he couldn't get the loan. He was getting a loan to buy the company. And then I had someone bought like old money that was just doing a 9 to 5 at another e-commerce company. And he was like, okay, I work.
I don't even afford that.
Business loans in the US, man.
Okay.
You give them a business plan and you have like good, good salary, of course. And for sure this guy has some like proper savings, but he didn't really run like a business himself as far as I know.
But he wanted to get into something and buy.
He was working for an e-commerce company in the US, is still. And he was like, I want to do it myself too. Um, so yeah, like, you do you, you know? Like, great that you want to make that opportunity. If you make that up, if you make that step, I think that you're very like smart and like, you know, you have a plan ready. And yeah, because to me it was also important. I wanted the company to grow. I was like, this is— it's profitable, it's a good brand. We have the name Old Money. Yeah, we have a proper Instagram account, we have good branding. We have a list of half a million customers, you know, like it should be doing well. And he was like, because I did some interviews, I did like five interviews with different buyers, and he was like, "Look, we're gonna buy stock and bring it to the U.S." And this was what I like to hear because because I still have twenty percent in it, by the way.
Oh really?
Yeah, yeah. Like he only bought eighty, but I'm.
Is that like an earn out? Is that just you have?
No, I'm non-active, like non-active twenty percent founder equity. So like for me, it was also beneficial because this guy that my broker said, like I've seen. Businesses sell where the owner kept 20%, and then the owners 10x the business, and that 20% is worth more than they even sell for. Yeah, yeah, they call it the second piece of the cake sometimes that you sell them later for. But anyway, he was like, I'm gonna buy stock and bring it to the US with better margins. We don't dropship to the US from China, which take a week, um, and like customers have next-day shipping, which will increase CVRs. So I saw those 3 things, I thought, okay, this business is gonna grow if this guy comes in and does that. Now, one year later, like nothing of that happened. I feel like he's almost afraid to take the risk because I think he still works at like the nine to five, nine to five business, which is completely okay. And it's a great guy.
It just seems odd.
It's smart. Great guy. Yeah.
But this size.
I think people that buy this should just be more prepared because like sometimes I'm looking at the website.
I'm like, yo, it's still like until like you in touch with that guy at all day today? Yeah.
Yeah. Not day today, but once a week or something like that.
So still. Pretty active.
Yeah, yeah. But like once a week, a 20-minute call, it's not that active, to be honest. Yeah. And I've been looking at the website, like it's still the same as one year ago when I was running Old Money. I was updating the website every single month. New, new content, new layout.
I think it's hard to replace that founder instinct. Yeah.
And he was like, yeah, I don't know how Shopify works. I'm like, then hire someone. Yeah, but I don't want to spend money on hiring someone.
Like, this is crazy.
Yeah. And then like I was looking at the products, I'm like, wait, but You own biz now for more than a year, and there hasn't been a single launch.
Did the team stay on? Yeah, all of them.
Yeah. And is that part of the team is texting me like we miss your energy, like we miss that like growth, and it's like way smaller now. But yeah, no product launches, no maintenance, just like running it and hoping to cash.
Like it's doing has it grown at all? Is it flat? Is it down?
It's like three times smaller than when I sold it.
Okay.
It's still doing good profits. Like this guy is. going to earn back what he paid. But that's because I built good fundamentals and recurring customers. But it could have done 10 times better if it was more founder fire, I would say.
Yeah, I see that so many times.
Yeah, every time you see that. Many times.
Were you separate to not wanting to do that, did you have something else on your radar, i.e., HiStrips or similar, or anything else, in fact, before you sold, which also motivated you? Because obviously, The other question would be, okay, it's making profit. You might not like it, but at least just keep fucking running it.
Yeah. No, like, I, um, HiStrips, I have 3 co-founders, um, yeah, in it. And like, I came— I'm the last one. I came in it like as the 4th one, um, because HiStrips was like—
The 4th or 3rd? Yeah, 3 others.
The 4th, yeah.
Oh, you're the— oh shit, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
I've always been a solo founder and I actually regret it, bro. It's the next thing I do, I'm gonna have at least one co-founder.
Right now we're unbeatable, man. Yeah, without these 3 motherfuckers, I, I like— it wouldn't be as big as it was now.
So talk to me about the story of how this started. Yeah, and so like, I don't want to like get a pink strip out as well.
Yeah, yeah, like this one I still need to keep it like closed for the, for the retail, but you can have a look, man. Like we also have the purple, the purple one.
So that's like the hero product, right? Yeah, the pink nasal strip. Did it start pink? Um, unless you want to do a little presentation.
It started pink and black, actually. Yeah. Um, I'm not sure, there's not even a black one here. There's all new colors.
This is going to be your best ad in your ad account, by the way. I'm gonna put it on.
Yeah, I'll ship you some new ones. Um, yeah, no, we started with pink and black, but actually we were my 2 Spanish co-founders, um, which were like big in crypto first.
Like, did you know them already?
No, no. And that's the thing, like, I don't want to like, um, yeah, of course, like talk them down or something, but they were not really into e-commerce yet, so they purely started this brand because they wanted to have an e-com brand to like do parties with, do some cool shoots, like hang out with, with women as well. And that's kind of how I met them. It's very funny. Um, I was in Valencia, they were like, they booked a boat and they were like wearing all these strips, pink and, uh, pink and black ones. So they put it on all the girls, like everywhere we came they would like put pink strips on girls. And that was like kind of their motivation. They didn't care about e-commerce. And I kind of was like the e-com guy and the brand guy there. I was running Old Money back then. I'm like, guys, I used nasal strips my whole life. I had a nasal spray addiction. Like, before I went to bed, I always sprayed the nasal spray and opened the nose. Yeah, yeah. And these motherfuckers helped me to get rid of that. So I loved the product. And I'm like, guys, the branding you actually cooked— because it's always been this branding and I loved it, you know, I loved the pink and black branding. I was like, so good. And I was like, man, you guys, you should do more with this. And they were like, yeah, whatever.
Was it already a business then though? Was it just—
it had Shopify, but it was mainly like to be with like Have the lifestyle around it, you know. Um, and then a few months later, um, the third co-founder was like, hey Sam, like, you know, you know a lot about ads, you've like proven record, did like millions in spend, don't you want to join Highstrips? And I liked, I liked this crew, I like these guys, we're friends.
But they made money previously though, sounds like they had in crypto.
Little in crypto, a lot, yeah.
But with the brand, not in e-com, with the brand zero, right?
It was kind of like, come in and make it profitable. And I was like, fuck yeah, let's roll. And that's when we started rolling. And I basically did Old Money and High Strips the whole day, those 2 brands.
So there was overlap?
It was overlap. One year, one year of overlap. Yeah. And then this started popping off, like, very, very great. It started— it basically started from a brand mainly made to have a lifestyle and have girls around to the brand it's now. And we, like, we all started, like, All four of us, we use the products on a daily basis. We love the brand. Like I cannot wait now to go back home and work on high strips, and that's the most important thing. Like we we love the brand. We rip it. We started it. We love the branding. One of the co-founders did all the branding, so like it feels very family to us. Like every single product you see here is all designed by our co-founder Javi. Like everything made here. Like we we didn't use a single agency. Nothing.
Yeah.
We have twenty one product launches before end of the year. Like that's all going to come electrolytes, gummies, blue light block like blue light blocks that comes with this. Like we have a lot of products that are coming, and it's all like one big family. And ever since I sold old money, I had like 100% of my time towards this. You know, I think like ever since that a few months later, it's now like becoming like way bigger than old money would ever be. Yeah, way bigger than we all thought this was going to be because it started as fun passion. Lifestyle brand to like what it is now. And it literally grew to one big family. Like, we have thousands of people backing the brand, loving the brand, creators, as you can like probably see all over the place, which we can dive into as well. Um, but it's like kind of a brand of the people, you know? Like, we have like of course some evil eyes, but everyone loves it and everyone likes it. And it's a brand we build all together, um, to actually improve people's lives. Because this The nasal strips started by improving my life. Like, literally, I use this every single day. Um, you've tried it yourself. Like, it's, it's life improving. And now, like, our mission is to, like, have more products that are, like, life improving, you know?
Um, I want to get into loads of that, but quickly, because people are wondering. So are you 4, 4 of you, 25% each?
Uh, no.
Equal co-founders or no?
It's not all equal. It's not all equal.
Because I guess, like, Whoa, OK, fine. Another question. If you're the e-com guy, is there key areas that each co-founder owns, like operations, design, whatever? How does that look roughly?
That's why we're so fucking unbeatable right now. As I'm the growth guy— marketing, growth, finances, product as well. But I'm not the best product guy in terms of design. So I'm the growth guy. Then my co-founder Javi is the design guy, who everything you see here is cooked by him. Yeah, uh, he does such an amazing fucking job, it's insane.
Um, so all of this is done by the guy that's on Twitter that makes the ads as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, JPEG Mafia is this guy. Like, he makes amazing stuff. Like, this guy's a design geek, you know, he's amazing. Um, then we have a third co-founder, Spanish guy too, um, and he does everything operational. Like, absolutely beast, you know, the guy that's on his phone 17 hours a day. Uh, he was gonna be here, but he like, he was late with his flight. Like he does everything, suppliers. He's like in 20 WeChat group chats, 3PLs. He works with Ecomflow, like he works with them. He works with like, he does in collab, like everything operational he does.
Yeah.
And he's like doing a great, great job with that. Then the 4th co-founder is platforms and legal. He's French. He like, um, he does all the platforms. So Amazon, TikTok Shop, and all the legal things like, I don't know, contracts, NDAs, trademarks. Company setups, you name it. So like one growth guy, that's me. Marketing guy, that's me. Design guy, Javi. Operations guy, legal, and legal and platforms guy. So like we like are kind of a dream team, saying it like that, you know. Like we, we ran the company for a long time just the 4 of us. Then like our first hire was the, uh, community manager. That's like the hero employee. Like he's been with us for a year. And he's been running all the community we've done. Like, it's— if you go to High Strips, our Instagram account, you go to like tagged posts, you will see a new post every 30 minutes.
Really?
You can scroll for an hour, you click, you still see only like a few months ago. Like, that's really our strength. And he managed all of that, you know, it's constant DMing, constant closing deals. He did the Hyrox deal, for example, um, which is like a major, major milestone because Hyrox is like a billion dollar sports evaluated brand.
You've done one?
I've never done one.
I've done 6.
Really?
It's fucking brutal. Really?
Yeah. Didn't you shit yourself?
I actually nearly did on one of them because I took this Morton bicarbonate of soda product. Anyone that's in the niche elite running space—
The white, black, white brand?
Yeah, super expensive, like £30 a serving. I thought it was a good idea and I literally nearly shat myself and I got a really bad time.
Yeah, funny.
This was like a year and a bit ago.
Yeah, no, like I've never done one myself, but like this guy, like on all the, on all the collaborations we do, um, so that's— we almost see him as the 5th co-founder, you know, because he's like—
Yeah. Are you all full-time, all the 4 co-founders, even now?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's the exact opposite to me. I've always been a solo founder. Yeah, I always thought at least have one co-founder would be nice. Yeah, to have 3.
Yeah, no, I would always see people complain like, ah, but you share, you share with 4 people. And I'm like, yeah, without this I would definitely— My piece of the pie would be like 10 times smaller, not even 4. So like—
Smaller piece of the pie.
My piece of the pie is, it's a smaller piece of a way bigger pie. Yeah, without these guys, it would be nothing. Plus it's like family, you know, it really feels like family.
I want to get into a lot of the specifics, but roughly how long has that brand been running then, or at least since you got involved? Um, 2 years, or—
I got involved in October 2024, so this October will be 2 years.
Yeah. And how's the growth trajectory looked like high level? Like I think you said in the past few months specifically, it's really gone like yeah.
It was like compounding because you know like this shit is you can try to rip the brand seriously, but it's not profitable meta on first purchase. Yeah, impossible. Oh yeah, we have launched two thousand sets, all angles, whatever. So we have been like getting a lot of runway cash to like keep buying ads, keep buying customers because they come back. It's it's almost addicting. You know, like I can't. I'm stressing out if I have like a few strips left. Like I need this to like sleep good or like exercise.
It does make a big difference. Yeah, definitely.
So people come back and that's why like we flatlined a lot building the brand, building proof of concept as well, like getting all the creators in, getting data. And so it was almost one and a half year of like building the fundamentals, compound customers. And that's when we, um, one and a half— after one and a half years starting to pop off, like the compound started to pay out.
Like that's why Only in the past few months, really?
Yeah.
Would you say?
I think it was April or something.
Yeah.
That's why having a brand is so important, because you keep building, building, building, building, and one day it will pop. If like, there's probably so many people even watching this podcast who tested this on like a one-day store, or like called like oxygen strips or O2 strips or like performance strips. We've seen it all, doesn't work. We've just been compounding for one and a half year, and we've been back.
They always had— did always have a subscription engine.
Yeah.
From day one.
Not from day one. From like, yeah, I brought that in.
Yeah, I completely agree. Like, I would say I would not start a brand that doesn't have the ability to do subscriptions now.
Well, that doesn't have any LTV to it, definitely, yeah.
And subscriptions obviously is the obvious mechanism for that.
I know with that compound came also like the biggest athletes in the world wearing it. Like, I remember we sent like the 5th employee I told you about, like the— or sorry, the 1st employee, the 5th co-founder, whatever. He was also like constantly reaching out to physiotherapists of world-class athletes.
Yeah, I saw you got, um, what's his face, Carlos Alcaraz.
Carlos Alcaraz.
And we would ship it to physiotherapists.
Also like Erling Haaland made like a YouTube video wearing, uh, is wearing high strips. And we like woke up one day and we see him like, um, we got a video of the physiotherapist how he was training with nasal strips on, our pink nasal strips. So that's like super iconic. Yeah, because no one had pink nasal strips before. Yeah, and we were like, oh, he's training with it, let's see. Like, and we were all watching the live, uh, final because we saw him training, and then we saw him walking up with the pink nasal strips, stayed on for 4 hours the whole match. You're like, fuck yeah.
I was like, you get the benefit from that because obviously it's not branded.
Yeah, it's not branded. And we— he has like Nike contracts, you know, he can't mention it. Um, yeah, okay. But just Google— you can use it though, right? Google pink nasal strips and find what you see, you know. Like, we checked Google Trends that day, boom, like pink nasal strip Carlos Alcaraz with Laser Strip. Like, we have like blogs on our website where we say like we ship to Carlos Alcaraz. Obviously, like, we can't mention it like directly, like we sponsoring him or whatever, but we are— he's using our product and that's something that we could say. Um, it's a fact, we've seen it. Like, we can't advertise with it too, but we can write a blog that he can advertise with.
You can't—
can't.
Yeah, it's tricky.
Maybe we can some way, but we don't even want to try. Yeah, we don't— we don't want to risk that, that like Beautiful organic thing that happened. Yeah, we don't want to ruin it by like using it in ads. And like there's some there's even some people making ads for us, like or or not ads but like videos. People like have you seen the viral naysayer that Carlos Alcaraz has been using? You know, like kind of like that. And it wasn't only Alcaraz; it's like literally like someone won the Tour de France with naysayers on the Giro Italia. Like literally world's biggest stages are being won with like people using high strips.
So there's a lot I want to go into here. It's a very interesting brand and growth model. But like high level, what would you say has been like the growth model? Like how have you thought about it? Is it just good creative and meta again with LTV? Is it something else? Is it a bit more nuanced?
Um, usually I would say meta because I'm like the biggest meta geek and ad geek you'll ever meet. But with HiStrips, it's been as we call the family, like the creators. As we like literally, do you know Snowball? So from Noah.
Yeah.
Like, um, yeah, he had a big exit on that, didn't he? Yeah, yeah. Congrats to him, man. That's a cool one. But with Snowball, we have like 4,000 active people making content for us, and that's unbeatable. And we use that content in ads too.
Just micro creators? Yeah, yeah. Are you paying them or just shipping free products?
And we pay them, uh, on their sales.
Yeah, with discount code, but And is that then your creative engine fundamentally?
Fundamentally it was for a long time. Now we use Tribe from Lucas.
Yeah.
Big shout out to that as well because it unlocked big—
Is that a SaaS tool? Sorry, Tribe.
Yeah.
I think I've heard of it.
Yeah, bro, I'll hook you up later after this, bro. It's a game changer.
Really?
Well, I can—
That as well as Social Snowball?
We have launched 7,000 videos in the past 2 months, all came from Tribe. Combine that with 1,000 videos a month approximately from Snowball, we've like 8,000 videos, which all gets run as creative.
Yeah. And are you making creative in-house? Well, as in general, separate to that as well, right?
As well. Yeah.
So like, it's a lot of volume.
It's unbeatable almost, you know. And like, this organic engine, social snowball, making creators link in bios. And then Tribe is like UGC for ads, which we use. And then on top of that, we have Javi, who makes the world's best static ads in the— literally in the world. And yeah, like It's all of this combined, combining with press, combining with seeing a pink nasal strip in Tour de France, which has 700 million viewers, by the way. Um, you know, like all of this combined is something that like, yeah, like grabs attention globally.
Are you running the ad account yourself now? Yeah. Would you ever delegate that?
No.
Is that because you think it's too important?
Yeah, I have someone like— we have a, um, we recently hired a head of growth. Media buyer as well, but we buy together. Like I'm in that account every day for two hours at least.
How much you spending now?
I guess we're gonna near two million in Meta spend.
It's really annoying that Meta banned card payment, right? Amex points. Oh no, buddy.
We're still on card payments.
Really?
Yeah.
Fuck. I was looking for an alternative recently because our banking miles helped my life.
Bro, Chase points are even better.
Really?
Yep. We like—
I like, bro, I've done something to remain on card payment. They just haven't pushed you to—
No, I've pushed for it with my rep, bro. Like, I'm gonna tell, like, literally, like, a few days ago I was looking at my miles and calculating. I have enough miles now for like 200 first class flights.
Yeah, yeah. So like, what's your peak miles at one time?
I think 20 million.
Okay, you beat me. I had 15 million in 2021.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, bro. Like, also hotel, like, it's crazy. A week in Maldives is like 800K miles. Yeah, if you have 20 million, like, you, you you can stay 20 weeks.
It's such a hack.
I could almost like quit my rent here and go live in a hotel for the rest of my life, literally with the mouse. Have you thought about that? Actually, that's crazy.
Yeah, I thought— well, hotels, I've always thought, obviously if you've got 20 million, it's fine, but like it's not the best. It's worse for them compared to flights. Yeah, yeah, but it's like if you've got that many—
Yeah, yeah, true, bro. It's the biggest hack. And we started using Slash now, which has like 3% cashback.
Yeah, I've been looking for a solution. I can, yeah, speak about that.
Yeah, I can, I can plug you into Slash if you want.
I've heard of that as well.
Yeah.
Are you a US company though? I think that's US only, right?
Oh yeah, yeah. You have UK now.
UK company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Like, I think one thing a lot of people would probably naively assume then is like, okay, let's say you've got this great product, which I think, as you're saying, implying, is the most important thing, right? Starts with the product, then obviously it's the creator and creative engine these days, and then obviously it's good media buying. mixed with decent LTV, and that's how you fucking scale. High level, that is the e-com model these days, right? I think most people know that that are in the game.
Yep.
But how have you funded that? Because you mentioned it wasn't profitable before.
Yeah.
I think you said something along those lines.
Yeah.
High level, how much cash— did you guys have to put loads of money up front?
Yeah.
Or was it super lean and it cash flowed itself?
No.
Because you've done it obviously without raising outside capital, which I think is way better, by the way.
Yeah. Yeah, no, I heard your story.
Well, sorry for another time. Yeah.
No, we—
Yeah, how's that looked?
We just funded it. Like, we all had cash. They had cash from crypto, I had cash from old money, and we just put it all in. Like, take the risk together, you know? Like, we—
But were you putting a lot in, or did you put some in and then obviously it proved itself at that point, it was cash generating?
Well, yeah, like, what is a lot? You know, we definitely put multiple 6 figures in there.
Each or total?
Total.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like to ignite something beautiful like this, it's definitely worth it.
Yeah. And how was your supply chain?
I just want to say like, yeah, we also like right now before Q4, um, the last Q4 story, we, we also like took a loan and like, um, not like, like outside capital funding, but like a Wayflyer for buying— Wayflyer, exactly.
Yeah, for buying those guys.
Yeah, yeah, for buying inventory. Like if you need $500K of inventory, let's say you simply don't have that, but you need that to grow, right? Because Without inventory, you don't grow. And we, um, we like don't have a dropship model, so we don't pay like after we, we sold.
Did you have a dropship model up front?
No, never.
It's always been—
Always been.
You own the stock?
Yeah.
Where are you shipping from?
China.
EconFlow?
EconFlow, yeah. 4 or 5 days to US. Globally, it's top. It's expensive, but it's, it's good, you know, like it's very— it works.
Guess the margins on strips are fucking amazing, I would imagine.
You'd say so, but shipping is, uh, really— it's a big one. Yeah. But yeah, like saying that, like even if people are struggling with like putting money in themselves, like something like Wayflyer.
Agreed.
You pay like—
It's expensive on paper, but—
Is it though? Like, I'm not sure about your rates, but we—
The founder of Wayflyer is a good friend of mine.
Yeah, really nice. I think we paid like $500K, 5% for 6 months or something. Yeah, not that bad.
It's like super easily accessible, right? Whereas a bank loan.
Yeah, and that's the thing, like people always like don't want to get into loans and debt, but if you need it to grow— It's unsecured.
Yeah, no personal capital.
And if you pay like $500K in stock and you 10x your COGS, then you're like, you have $5 million on the line, you know. You need that to grow. If you don't, if you don't use your, all your cash you have or funds you have accessible, then you're like, you'll never really grow. It doesn't come like this, you know. If you have a dropship model, congrats, you can grow without like looking at the bank account, you know, as long as you're profitable. Yeah, you could like scale 10x overnight and your Chinese supplier will ship it anyway.
Um, who runs finance for you now?
Uh, we have a CFO, but I've been doing this for a long time.
Yeah, because the reason I ask is like, I think understanding the finance, like, even if your business is profitable, right, you can still fucking go bankrupt if you run out of—
Yeah, no, 100%. If we wouldn't took like Q4 loan last year, we would have gone bankrupt, you know? Yeah, easy as that.
The amount of people I've known that have scaled and just don't even have any sort of professional finance input blows my mind.
Yeah, no, I've done finance for a long time. I love numbers, but You need cash most of the times from outside if you want to grow, else you will go bankrupt. It's simple as that. If you buy stock upfront though, yeah, because it's else it's sitting like let's say for before this payout reach your bank account, we have paid stock, packaging, meta as well. Yeah, um, like shipping in sometimes. Yeah, well, depending on before the money reach your account, like if you don't Have money to pay all those things, you you won't reach the payout even. Like you won't reach like a healthy healthy cash flow.
Yeah, makes sense.
Speaking about that, that's also why I think like e-commerce now, you know, like you need to have something great in order to win, as it's becoming hard to like have a brand. Yeah, like this pre-money all, like not everyone has or want to take their risk.
Yeah, agreed. I want to talk about the products and brand a little bit then. So you started with this, obviously, like, it's a good product. I think it's a great product, by the way, in terms of it's pink, it's viral, it's recurring, it's light. You said it's quite expensive to ship, but I guess compared to other stuff, it's different.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's for sure.
Why go into all the other stuff, which feels quite soon? Yeah, I saw you were doing— I don't know if you've mentioned this— like electrolytes.
Electrolytes, yeah.
We can say that?
Yeah. Yeah.
Is that launched yet?
It's gonna launch in 4 days.
Because I saw that and I thought, maybe I'm just a fucking idiot, but to me that feels a little bit away from what the brand—
Yeah.
Like, I think this stuff, like, I see this as like sleep and home wellness optimization, whatever you want to call it, you know, red lights, sleep strip. It all makes sense.
Yeah.
I guess I would look at electrolytes as like, that's a different business.
Yeah.
How do you think about the product?
Yeah, like Um, you know, nasal strips make you perform better, make you sleep better, and it improves your life. We have a customer list of 1 million people right now on email.
Yeah.
And 90% of our people run, run marathons or do high rocks. Like, what do those people have in common? You know, they take electrolytes or they take other products we're going to launch, such as like caffeine gummies or cardio gummies for races. Yeah, we're going to launch those too. So we simply just asked our customers, because like, what do you want to see from us? They love the brand, they know it's reliable, they know we're killing it with design, they know we're killing it with product, because you tried it, it is generally the best nasal strip in the world, hands down. So that's what I said in the beginning of this talk about the story and your brand and the feeling and emotions it gets. Athletes use this, they know reliable, they keep buying it. They know, uh, the moment they put on the Hi-Stift, they love it. They get it at home, they rip it open, it comes in nice packaging with stickers. They also want to use other products that they already use, but from our brand. Because we have been asking like, what do you use on a daily basis? And everyone was like, electrolytes. And everyone's like, but yeah, like I cannot find the perfect electrolyte. I wish Highstrips would make one because you guys have excellence in design and in product. So we're like, okay, like we're gonna give that to you. And that's the thing, like I always, um, what, like this is a very good one for like brand owners. I always say like this, as long As you think, as you believe, you can send it to your whole email list and not 1% will think, what is this? Or will click spam, or I didn't like— this is not for me. Then you shouldn't launch it. But if you would send it to your whole email list and everyone would be like, oh shit, sick, I use this, I use this already, now my favorite brand in performance and in wellness launched it, fuck yeah, let's go, then you can launch it, we think.
How do you think about the name in that context? It's called High Strips. Yeah, you sell stuff that isn't strips.
Yeah, no, we have been, um, this one has been debating for a long time. We've been like High Performance, yeah, High Wellness, High Sleep even. Yeah, um, but we just can't get rid of the name because the strips are amazing. It's too well known and it's like our main thing. We even tried to split like His Trips. Yeah, yeah, like, like His Trips, you know, but yeah, like We've been trying to think about it, um, or High Life even, but I like High Life.
Yeah, I guess. Is it inspired by High Smile?
Maybe, I don't know. The guys already had the name when I joined. Yeah, but like, no, we, um, we believe like High Strips electrolytes. Yeah, it's not that weird. Like, brand owners will say, but yeah, it's not strips. But yeah, like, yeah, no, I think it makes sense, I guess.
Yeah, I made the mistake of going into electrolytes when actually we're a functional coffee business.
Yeah.
And like, it just— while it was like, okay, supplements, it wasn't— there wasn't a consistent string between them enough.
Yeah.
Whereas your consistent thing is high performers that are doing shit to better themselves. So I get that.
Yeah. Um, like, if we now would send— in 4 days we're gonna launch— if we would send email like, guys, thanks for your feedback, we have finally launched the perfect electrolyte ready for your races, before sleep, um, or like your at-home workouts, or your HIITs, or your marathon. You can use it together with your strip. Literally, you will put your strip on, drink the electrolytes, and go. We're sure it's gonna be another banger for us.
Yeah, nice.
So that is, um—
How do you think about like a good product versus one that just, you know, you can make good ads for? Like you mentioned, obviously, like this isn't profitable first order, which by the way, fucking most things aren't these days, right?
Yeah.
Especially at scale. Like, do you think this is the best product you've done? Like high level, or was it just good and it worked? How do you think about what products to do then? Obviously you said, yeah, like it makes sense, but is there like a, yeah, certain checkboxes before you launch something?
Um, yeah, well, we believe in making the absolute fucking best product. That's simply— but it also sells itself. Look at Tesla, you know, they do zero marketing, their product's amazing, it sells. Same for iPhone, they don't have to do any marketing. So we believe in making the absolute best product that's possible. Like, that's why these are so good. This one we launched, it's super high, um, High end, like the box, everything. Like I can't even—
I nearly launched a red light panel business like 2 years ago. Yeah, I probably should have done.
Yeah, if you look at this, it's almost like unboxing an iPhone, you know? You get this one up, you have like this little silk rope here to get it out. Um, it comes with a cover. Yeah, it's charged, I think. Yeah, yeah, you hold 3 seconds touchscreen button and it like— it's super, it's super like red, you know? It even gets like—
that'd be a good ad.
Yeah, and feel it, like how premium it feels, right? It's heavy. It's aluminium.
Definitely not meant to put it in front of your eye.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's cool.
I use this every night as well before.
You should make a pink one. I don't know if that defeats the scientific purpose.
It can't. Like because we we like that's the thing. We also third party lab test everything we do.
I definitely got my eyes.
Yeah, and this one is like it's super strong. Like it works. It does the job. It has the right spectrum, the right nanometer. So yeah, we won't change. And it actually works good. I had an injury here. just keeping this on every night, after a week it felt like way more better. Like it stimulates collagen, like recovery.
I got a massive one in the house.
Yeah?
Yeah, I don't use it enough, but girlfriend does.
So yeah, like this is also an example. Like this product, if you unbox this, we sell it for roughly $100. You're like having such a good experience. The product is amazing. It feels amazing. It feels premium. So we believe in the thing that it sells itself, you know? And we shipped it to 200 creators. They all unbox it like this. They all show it. Then we got like 2,000 sales out of the organic creators, and we started advertising, 20,000 in sales. And we're now selling like almost 100,000 of these units a year as well at this rate, like probably even more by now, way more even, I think. Yeah, so we believe in just building the best.
Development process look like for you? Like, like literally you go from, okay, we want to do a red light panel. What's the process from that, the factory, the team involved, to launching it?
Yeah. Yeah, months of R&D. It's simple as that. Like lots of revision sampling. We're gonna launch a V2 now that's even stronger. Um, and a lot of, a lot of people said, uh, like we listened to the customers, you know, like the feedback was that they don't like this touch button. Yeah, they want to have like a physical click, click button. We thought touch was cool and like futuristic, but we're now going to change to like a click.
Um, satisfying.
Yeah, so like we, we listen to the customers, we do feedback rounds, we literally sent emails Like you know, how do you want this to be? You want it to be compact or big? We worked on like a foldable, like iPad thing that fold out. So you had a big screen. People prefer a smaller one they could put in their pocket.
You were ahead of the iPhone Fold then, or the iPhone Duo?
Yeah, kind of. Yeah, came close to that. Yeah. So now we listen to the customers and we do years of R&D, and we have the advantages of being very good with Econ Flow and Daniel Daniel Daylan's team. They help us out with that big time. Like also the electrolytes has been. 2 years of R&D almost. But that's the thing, like, that electrolyte will be the best, like, you will ever experience. I'm telling you, like, I've been doing it myself at home, right? Like, it's better than Humantra, it's better than Cadence, it's better than anything. Seriously. Like, yeah, not to shit on guys, but like, yeah, it won't get better than this.
Do you have product team in-house, or is that literally you?
It's all the co-founders and Daniel's team.
Yeah. How does the rest of the team look? I know you're a big supporter of being super lean.
Yeah.
Which I fundamentally align with as well.
I know we spoke about being super lean and how nice that is, but we've been hiring a lot actually recently now.
I guess lean is relative to scale, right?
Yeah.
Like revenue per head.
Yeah.
So how did the team look, I guess, maybe more recently?
Yeah, on top of— I should have looked at my Slack right now because I don't know, like, I might forget someone. But we have the 4 co-founders. Me doing growth, design, operations, legal partnerships. We have the community manager who's like doing all the outreach. He manages Tribe. He manages Snowball. He he got the High Rocks collab in place. Also Juan LeBron collaboration we did. Like it's the number one padel player in the world. We got a girl on social media. Our our social media looks fire. Like she's like full time on that. We got Email, um, email design, email like copywriting, calling. Um, then we got—
you don't have to list all of them, but yeah, support. How many people?
I'm actually like thinking in my head right now. Like, we got support, we got head of growth, we got head of logistics.
More or less than 15 people then?
I think, I think we're gonna be pushing 20. So yeah, including co-founders, which is for like, let's say 15 15 hires, yeah. Design, like—
Fully remote.
You and your designer are fully remote, yeah. Everything is remote, yeah.
Yeah. What's your general ethos on— obviously, we said high-level e-com stuff, but what's your general ethos on how to build the right team culture? I guess it helps having 4 co-founders.
Our culture is super good. We have one Slack channel. That's basically it. We have one Slack channel that's called the HiSips family. Everyone is in there, and we like— We treat it as actually like a friend group chat. Every hour we make stuff like, now I'm working on this. When we were in China, we're making funny videos how we were smoking with the factory owners and doing negotiations. Everyone that joins HiStrips instantly feels like it's part of the mission and part of something bigger. They don't feel like I'm working, doing this job to make some money. We're so warm.
How do you find those people? What's your hiring process like? And how upfront about certain things are you?
Yeah, it's funny that you ask because we have been trying different agencies. Like hiring agencies like Hiry, ProSana. I'm not sure if you know them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, years of working, like one year of working with them, not a single good hire came through. Like, I'm so sorry. Like, I really don't want to like talk people down, but like not good hires came through. Best is from DM and X, x.com. Like, I, if I go to my DM, I definitely agree with that sentiment. People are like, yo, I love Heist Trips. Can I please like work for you? Like do one month trial free? I hop on the call like, what are you good? What are your talents? You know? Okay, you want to start like for this salary? Bring it on, join the family. We send them like all products we have. They rip their nose strips on the meetings. In the family chat, we send like how we go nights out, how we work 16 hours a day, how like I send like updates like, uh, 8 AM I work, 12 PM I work, 10 PM I work. In this family chat, they get such a feeling of being part of the family. They put it in their bio, working for HiStrip. Like, that's how we hire. Like, we hire— it comes to us literally. Like, the best hires we made Literally, it's from DM or like Instagram DM or X DM.
There's a lot of truth in that. I've seen a similar pattern in at least the people I've like most enjoyed working with.
Yeah, because if you hire someone from like LinkedIn or something, those people are like just one transactional. Transactional.
Yeah, they want a job. They don't want to work for you.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I definitely share naturally more of that philosophy than the, you know, the more traditional one of, you know, recruiter, LinkedIn.
Yeah.
Because yeah, I just think it's that founder mindset. You very much want to have, and you can have, employees and team members that have that founder mindset without being a founder. There's probably, I'd say, a third of our team are probably that. I don't mean the others are bad, but it's just a different mindset. And I think when you're a super intense founder, which I feel like anyone that's scaling probably is, you have to fucking love it. And you need people that get that and aren't scared by that intensity. I think to the average person, like a 9-to-5er, quote unquote, just doesn't— just won't like that. I think it's too intense or it's toxic. Or it's actually— there's two sides to that. It's like, it's either toxic, right? Or you work 16 hours a day. Yeah. Or it's super inspiring and exciting.
Yeah.
The same thing perceived differently by a different mindset.
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's interesting, man. Like, it's interesting, like, how— how, like, like, I think if you would ask, like, big brand owners how to hire, I think that we do the exact opposite. And it works.
Do you think you could get 10 times bigger with that same approach?
I think you could. I think that like we might want to hire 1 or 2 actual seniors, like some dudes that are like 40 plus and have like 20 years of experience to do that. But for now, the stage we're in is like rapid growth and like basically fuck around and find out growth. Yeah, I think this is working perfectly fine. I think once we're gonna hit like 100 million plus a year. One senior like CFO, for example, that like is really strict on finance because at $100 million a year, that is really important. But marketing, you will not outbeat us. Like our Gabriel, like Gabriel's name of our like head of community. Good luck competing with this guy. He's one year, one and a half year at Highstrips. He has 4,000 open DMs with creators. Good luck beating me with ads. Like, it's like no one will like be more an ad manager than me. But finances and operations, maybe. We also have a partner now that does our retail. I forgot to mention that. Yes, retail is something that requires years of experience and contacts, I think.
Yeah, for sure.
Like, you know how hard it can be, like opening doors.
So slow, so different to do it.
And guarantee— or like, no, not guarantees, like legal certificates and stuff like that. We actually, I think, like going to hit like close to 500 doors before end of the year as well with High Strips.
Is all your business US, by the way? We didn't even get onto that.
Global.
We could probably go for 3 hours, bro.
Like, even in— yeah, like, uh, like, I'm like at 10% of what I, what I can share, you know.
But are you actively selling globally, or is it—
yeah, like, in Greece right now, we're in every Intersport. We're like in 30 stores in Greece and in random islands, you know. Like, if you walk into an Intersport at a random island, you will see like Native Strips.
But D2C-wise, I mean, as the core—
D2C also globally.
Are you literally running ads globally, or are you running them to, say, 5 countries?
Globally, with the US being the biggest, or the US will always remain the biggest. Yeah, like, no, we're like, we had a, we had a point where Spain was number one. Yeah, we had a point where Australia website though, or one website. Yeah, we had a point where Australia was number one. Hong Kong is our 5th best country for red light because people are like into longevity in Hong Kong. It's like super interesting. Like, let's see what else weird country, like United, like here, UAE, we're big. Saudi, we're big.
That's the huge benefit of shipping from China, right?
That's why, like, we've been looking into, like, ShipUp.
Yeah, like, we use ShipUp.
Yeah, yeah. And we looked at it, it was maybe like 50 cents cheaper, which is good, like, in micro margins. Like, you always want to get every penny you can. Like, that's a fact. But the power of shipping globally without, without too much, like, look, because now we already have, like, one full-time logistic plan on our Amazon warehouse, Dictaship warehouse, retail stores restocking, and EcomFlow warehouse. But if you would have ShipBob at like 5 different locations, it would be a mess. Like, so like for now, yes, we pay a little more, uh, but it unlocks global scale within a week shipping. So like, that's good enough for us.
Yeah, for sure. What's the goal with this? Like, was there a goal at the start? Is there a goal now? Are they the same thing?
Or is it just run it, scale it, make as much money as All our co-founders know this has way bigger things to it, and and we generally don't want to leave. I almost got depressed thinking that I would sell high strips and not like being actively with it anymore. Like I genuinely love the brand. Everywhere I come, I talk about it with pride. I use the strips. Like as to be honest, as the guy started with lifestyle, still that. Like it brings us a very nice life. So we we are also like in two weeks. sponsoring an Aston Martin race in the US, and we all go there. We have a big paddock, there's 50 people coming, like, in a pink high-strips Aston Martin.
That's sick.
Uh, we're gonna do Australia Open 2027, like, the biggest tennis podium. Like, that's the thing, like, it's too good to leave. I would never want to leave. Um, plus money-wise, we think we can grow it to a billion in revenue. Yeah, no, in, in an exit, in valuation.
Who's the one that sold recently?
Yeah, Breathe Right.
Breathe Right.
Our competitor sold for a billion.
And they weren't even D2C, were they? They're like a traditional Amazon retailer.
That's the thing. That is why we think we are not going to settle for less because our biggest competitor sold for a billion and they don't even have a Shopify store. They just do retail and Amazon. And we are now having Shopify and we're starting to grow in retail and Amazon. And we have retailers say that people pick this one over the medical boring Breathe Right one in the shelves. So that is good signs, um, good signs to have. So that, um, that is why we like don't want to settle for anything, anything less right now. That's the goal. Um, but it's not even a goal because like we, we love the ride. Like we all have so much fun building this. Like we almost don't have anything to look forward to in terms of numbers or like exits, you know. Came with a lot of struggle as well. Um, but now it's a fun, fun ride.
What's been the hardest thing? Because you make it sound so easy.
The hardest thing is, is growing a company that needs like runway, you know, and finances and the stress of will come back, will the money come back? I think that's the hard— like taking the risk. No one, no one would like put money into something they're not 100% guaranteed will come back. And lawsuits as well. Like we had like beginning of this year we launched magnetic nail strips. That's like our supplier was like, oh, such a good product. You guys need to launch it. So we launched it like with no thought behind it until we figured out that another company holds patent. They emailed us and we're like, oh shit, we were not aware of this, you know. Um, so we took it offline and then they, they opened the lawsuit trying to claim millions from us.
Is that a magnet inside the nose?
Yeah, something like that. You, you stick it on. But anyway, we made like— I don't know, we were live for one week, we made like super little sales, like almost neglectable. And they're like, yeah, you're gonna pay us a million in damages. And there you are, like, with no experience in the US law firms and lawsuits and stuff, like paying tens of thousands of dollars to lawyers as well to like try and convince them. Like, it's come— if you grow bigger, it obviously comes with a lot of stress and a lot of people that want things from you as well. Like, I have friends of mine that are getting sued for millions of dollars as well for not having a cookie banner on their website, for example.
Yeah.
Or have you heard about— have you heard about the strike true pricing law in California? No, like if you have a strike-through price for, let's say—
oh, sorry, yeah, longer than a month and you don't—
you never like really went back to that strike-through price, class action suit for a million dollars as well.
So as you get bigger, that stuff becomes more relevant, right?
And that is not nice because I hate dealing with that. Like, I hate like those— I, I would call them like, like bloodsuckers, you know, that like want to have a million dollars for like a small mistake that you made. Um, I don't know, I just don't like working with anything lawyers related, you know. Like, it's such a not nice Cruel process. So yeah, yeah, finances stress about profits coming back. Like obviously we're not there anymore, but like it is something in the start that makes it hard. And also building it out, like we, like we are 4 co-founders working 12 hours a day.
Who makes the decisions? Like are you all— is every, is every decision like big decision the 4 of you have to agree?
Yeah. Or is someone like the product, this operation guy does make, and the design guy like Like I can have my feedback, you know. Like I can say like, hey, I want this here. I like this more. But the design guy has the final word.
Yeah.
Same like I have the final word about growth and finances. I'm like, we can't pay this now. We will pay this. We'll do this. Like this our product. I have the final word about that. But like and the legal guy has the final word about trademarking. But we all agree and we all discuss. So yeah. It's also great, by the way. Like it's like a twenty dollar sleep mask with like Super premium packaging and everything.
The sale price is $20.
Yeah, $25.
That looks like the Manta masks or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, Manta was like our inspiration.
Yeah, yeah, that's super expensive. They're like $100. Yeah, yeah, seems a lot for a sleep mask.
And that's like even the sleep mask, which like upsell product of ours, like, and we like knocked it out with design and quality.
So there's no number you sell it for right now?
No, like, yes, if someone would buy like 50 or 40%, but Putting us on non-active, I think no one of our co-founders would do that right now.
Do you think you're motivated by money, or is it genuinely like— you sound like someone that actually enjoys building shit. Yeah, no, that's not true. I would say probably more founders than it is true for. Yeah, a lot of people just— that's why they do, you know, dodgy dropshipping stores, whatever.
Yeah, no, obviously money is important, but I'm not like into watches or like crazy cars, like expensive, like, like money status, you know. So for me, it's really more the fun and the freedom. Like, I can run a super cool brand that I love and that I use every day from anywhere in the world, and that's like— I would not trade it off to anything. I could do something fun anywhere in the world at any time of the day, and it will— it's what pays for my life. So like, why would I ever— like, you know, like, this is the most best position to be in. And it prints a lot of fucking money though. Like, that's a good— that's a good thing. But Yeah.
How much do you think is enough? I guess, like, personally.
Personally, I think, like—
Because people always give, like, bullshit answers about this. Oh, you don't, you don't need enough. And then you ask them, they say that you need loads. It's like, okay, be specific.
I think in Dubai, with travels here and there, I think 30, 40K is— it's not enough.
A month, you mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's comfortable, personally.
Oh, for sure it's comfortable. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, personally.
Yeah, obviously it's different if you're buying like fucking cars and houses, like that's separate.
But yeah, yeah, of course more is like, um, you need more to save, to like build, to like, I don't know, treasury. But that's something you can easily like pay your apartment with, pay your dinners with, pay your like—
here in Dubai, let's go to a lot of dinners.
Yeah, yeah, we— I do actually. Yeah.
If you had—
what do you think actually?
Well, I think you need less just to live. But yeah, I think it's 2 things, right?
Have you ever really checked it? You say less than to live, but you have your apartment, probably like 1 or 2 flights a month. I don't know, like how frequently you travel.
Yeah, I think—
Municipality, food here, like car.
Yeah, I think it's 2 things, right? There's obviously—
You can go fast.
Building wealth that pays you long term. Yeah. Which requires a surplus, right? You need to make more than you spend, obviously.
Yeah.
Because there's a lot of people that spend a lot of money but actually don't have any wealth because, yeah, they just spend everything that comes in. Yeah, which is probably most people.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, I think it depends if you're a lot— if you're like traveling and shit. Yeah, for sure, it's probably closer to what you said. Yeah. Um, I think you can— when you're just locked in though, yeah, basically rent, food, gym.
Yeah, true. Yeah, then when you actually like don't move around, it's less.
Yeah. But obviously, yeah, to build assets and like, you know, buy property or whatever.
Yeah. Oh yeah, that's, that's not— that's a different conversation.
Yeah, like it comes with like exits and profits and all that shit.
Yeah.
If you had like say $10K or maybe a bit more, but like say you were just starting a brand today? Like, yeah, okay, you've got the benefit of knowledge, but let's say like all the money, this brand went away.
Yeah.
And you're starting a brand in September 2026.
Yeah.
Like, not, not the brand, but like, how would you approach that?
Yeah.
So you're sat at a desk, you don't have a job, and you can go all in on something. Like, how would you, how would you do it?
Yeah, so my girlfriend is now in that position, uh, with a brand she's building. Um, so like what I do advise, and it might be not the most 100% ethical way to do. But if you have 10 grand on your bank account and you don't want to take massive risks of buying stock, you can either dropship, but dropshipping is not really nice how you build a brand because you did with all money. Yeah, like, yeah, but it's not really— it's not the best way because why? You could dropship, let's say, red light, but then you don't have a crazy nice logo on it.
Yeah.
And people would buy like from a brand that looks very nice and has UGC with a brand logo on it as well faster Then they would buy like a one-day store with like a white label red light, for example. You know, they would buy this 100 times faster. So that's why I say dropshipping is not the best way to test out if a brand will work, because it's not a fair test. Huh?
It's not a fair test.
Maybe if we would run this on the general store with no logo on it and no like nice unboxing videos of people like unboxing this, maybe it would be unprofitable. Now it's profitable because we have the whole brand and like we have the video. Our logo on it. Now people trust it. So what I advise my girlfriend and many other friends of mine too that want to start is get some samples in with a logo, like 10 products or something. Like make everything nice packaging, make a lot of ads with it, make a lot of content with it, make a professional-ass website with it, like crazy good, and start running ads and start selling. And just have a very good— like what I now built for my girlfriend, for example, like she has a product Amazing looking website, tens, maybe even twenties of UGC videos and statics. And I built like a really good email flow because she doesn't have stock and fulfillment. I built like a very good email flow on her website that if someone buys, it automatically cancels the order. It sends a message to the person like, hey, thank you so much for believing in this project. It's so appreciated. The founder here, thanks for buying.
That's a good idea.
Unfortunately, we ran out of stock of our first batch. So we had to cancel your order. Sorry, we forgot to put it out of stock on the website, but here's your refund back. We will email you once it comes back in stock. Thank you so much for believing in us. So like this, you can actually very cheap with even $500 test if it will work. Because if it doesn't work, you're sitting— I've seen many people that like, for example, let's take my girlfriend as an example. Let's say she would have spent $10K on her product. She would sit with it at home. Barely have money left to run ads. Run ads, it's unprofitable, you're cooked. You have to go back to your job, like back to 9 to 5, because you spent all your money on stock and the stock won't sell with profits. So if you want to think about yourself and about continuing a journey, it's the most important thing that you have proof of concept. You need to know, will my product sell with profits?
And the economics work.
Yeah, yeah, can the economics work? Else it doesn't make sense. You can have the best idea ever, if it won't sell with profits it won't survive. It won't survive long.
How much do you think you need to properly test a product and then launch that?
Max $2,000, $3,000 if you're dedicated. If you can make the—
To test or to launch something?
To test something.
How about to launch something with stock?
I think it depends on your COGS, right? If you have $2 cost of goods, maybe another $5K.
Yeah.
If you have $20 cost of goods, it depends on your cost of goods. But the most important thing is Make it all brand ready. Look like you're an actual brand. Get reviews from friends. Get videos from friends. Make the website professional. Have a good Instagram. Start running ads like you would already be live and you like your life depends on it. And if people buy with profits, if you see like oh this could be profitable, you can do like a forecast like oh let's buy now a thousand of my product and sell that, or like only a hundred, or like you could build it up slowly.
Yeah.
I even like advise a friend, um, that's a very good one to do this, what I just described. But I advised him to like send the customer an offer like, hey, I'm so sorry, like, hey, here the founder is here. We just ran out of stock of our first batch of our lounge. It went way faster than we'd expect. We would like to offer you something. Option A, full refund right now, no questions asked, and we email you once we're back in stock. Option B is get 20% cashback right now, and we'll ship you the badge hashtag two that's back in stock in one or two months.
Yeah.
A lot of people chose option B. He kept the cash. You know, like I already have pre-orders literally.
Should I do?
So like that is the best way to start. Like there's no other. If you're if you're on a budget, if you have money to blow and like want to spend 20k and you don't care if you lose that, of course you should. You can buy stock, but if you want to do it safe, this is the way to go.
100%. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. What's the one thing a founder should never delegate? And give me less than 20 seconds per answer.
For me, it's ads. Without ads, you're nothing. And you have to dream about that, wake up to them, go to sleep with them. Is your ad account down in the middle of the night? You have to be able to get it back. And someone that works for you would never do that.
Yeah. How do you know that someone's exceptional as a hire or team member?
By the energy. Simple. You can feel it. You know, I always feel if someone is a crook and like won't work, I can already tell from miles away, like, this person will ignore us in 2 weeks, or this person will like— it's like the fire in the eyes, you know? Like, for me, it's a feeling, nothing more, nothing less.
Yeah.
And overdelivering as well.
Yeah. You have your own personal slogan of living limitless. What do you mean by that?
Stay limitless.
Stay limitless. Yes.
It's just by always being limitless and not being limited by thoughts, by finances, by, by location, by anything, you know? Like, I just want to be like, no limit to freedom. Everything I do, freedom. It comes down to freedom. Yeah.
Yeah. If you could never sell this, would you keep doing it?
Yeah.
For how long?
Till I die, probably.
Yeah. If you're starting another brand now that couldn't be this or this category, what would you do?
Uh, if I would sell this and I wouldn't do it for money, I would start a skydive or surfing brand, like having custom parachutes, custom surfboards.
Yeah, sick.
Yeah.
If you do— okay, different question. If you're doing something else but it had to scale to a billion or as close to that as possible, what would you do?
Supplements.
Too broad. Give me, give me more specifics.
I would go into, um, specific needs like menopause or— yeah, testosterone declining.
Completely agree.
Supplements in there. Of course a lot of people do it, but I would find a niche, niche, uh, and, and dive into there in terms of like something that's solution. Plus I would make it a super story, um, like go to China, go to like a tea market and like sell a specific tea they do there for longevity and like Work together with an authentic farm or something, or like, and I would sell that, or like Nepalese shilajit, and like actually go there, work together with the harvesters, and like start a brand like that, you know, like a brand with a story.
Again, most expensive mistake you've made ever in business?
Not buying enough stock of high strips. Uh, yeah, in our Moment Suprême.
What's more important, product or marketing? if you had to pick one?
Product, 100%.
Yeah, I mean, that's an easy question.
People come back, yeah.
Okay, final one. Um, this can be a longer answer if you want. Like, what's the one bit of advice you give to your 18-year-old self looking back? I mean, you're still fucking young, but it was 7 years ago, right?
Uh, one piece of advice I would give to myself, my younger self, um, would be to actually build something valuable, um, both personal and business-wise to like build up value. Because if you're young, you have one advantage, and that's time. And value compounds over time. Can be a savings account, for example, you know, like not saying it like that. It can be your body. Like, we're like, when I was young, I didn't give a shit about my health, you know?
Yeah.
And now I'm like trying to reverse all of that, for example, with ice trips, right? As well. Like, yeah. And same for the brands. Like, I was building a brand, 6 months, close it, 6 months, close, 6 months, close it. And if you're 18 or 20 or 21 even, you have the advantage of building something that if you're 25, it's 4 years old already. And like building something valuable, both personal relationships that are like years old and strong, your body that has been working out for years and is strong, your brand that has a 3-year history is strong. Like even if it's a side hustle, if I would be young, Or my younger self would say like, keep building something over the years, even if it's not profitable, even if it's not paying off anything, keep building it, keep building value. One day it will pop off. Because I think what I waste— like, I'm still young indeed, but what I wasted time with in my 18s, in your 20s, yeah, in my early 20s, I'm still 24, 25, was not like compounding value, I think, like health-wise and business-wise. Yeah, I think that is, um, the biggest advice someone could give. And of course, enjoy too. The older you get, the less time you have to fully, like, enjoy because you feel like time is ticking.
I feel that every day.
Yeah, well, which is still, like, I mean, in perspective, not true. Like, it's still a feeling that you create, you know, because you can do everything you— I can do everything now I could do when I was 18, but there's more responsibilities coming. And friends that, like, get kids, like, like I would see Flores every day. Now I haven't seen him in a half a year, for example, you know. So appreciate the time more as well, and appreciate the moments more. I guess that's it.
Nice, been a pleasure. I'm sure we could go another whole—
yeah, I was about to say, like, there's so much.
He gives good answers.
This is a crazy, crazy story as well, man, how this came.
Oh, we can do a part 2 when you've got to a billion and you've acquired High Rock somehow.
Yeah, there's a big new collab coming. We could do a part 2 with that one.
Right, pleasure having you on.
Likewise, thank you, man. It was a great, uh, great time. Flew by.
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